In today's computing era, data management is quickly migrating towards cloud based environments having cluster storage. In most cluster file system designs, data is distributed across multiple servers at different data centers to create redundancy and maximize performance. Cluster storage provides a distributed file system that runs concurrently on multiple network attached storage nodes. Clustering provides access to all files from any clustered node regardless of the physical location of the file. The number and location of the nodes are transparent to the users and applications accessing them. Thus, end users and associated applications are generally not aware of the physical location of their data. However, because the data can be readily accessed, this transparency generally does not create an issue.
However, certain use cases require data to be created and stored at a fixed location that is readily identifiable by the end user. For example, there may exist legal implications, security requirements and/or audit policies that limit the storage of data to a known location. In these cases, current cloud based environments cannot be utilized for data storage because cluster file systems are inherently designed to distribute data across multiple servers.